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<title>scons: Release Roadmap</title>
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<h1><small>Release Roadmap</small></h1>
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<h2>Current Releases</h2>

<p>
The current stable release is 2.1.0, released 09 Sep 2011.
The latest 2.1.x release is 2.1.0, released 09 Sep 2011.
</p>

<p>
The latest 1.3.x release is 1.3.1, released 25 July 2010.
</p>

<h2>Upcoming Releases</h2>

<p>
Our goal is to meet the dates
for release candidates and the releases themselves;
the beta checkpoint dates are our best guess as this was published,
but they may be adjusted without notice.
</p>

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<table width="100%">
  <tr>
    <th>Estimated&nbsp;date</th>
    <th>Type</th>
    <th>Comments</th>
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  <tr>
    <td>May 2010</td>
    <td>Ckpt</td>
    <td>Beta for 2.0; breaks backward compatibility</td>
  </tr>
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    <td>June 2010</td>
    <td>RC</td>
    <td>Release candidate for 2.0.</td>
  </tr>
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    <td>June 2010</td>
    <td>2.0</td>
    <td>Public release that breaks backward compatibility and drops deprecated features</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>July 2010</td>
    <td>Ckpt</td>
    <td>Beta for testing new features.</td>
  </tr>
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    <td>Aug 2010</td>
    <td>Ckpt</td>
    <td>Beta for testing new features.</td>
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    <td>Sept 2010</td>
    <td>RC</td>
    <td>Release candidate for 2.1.</td>
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    <td>Oct 2010</td>
    <td>2.1</td>
    <td>First minor release of v2</td>
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<h2>Upcoming Features</h2>

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<h2>Release Planning</h2>

<h3>Release numbering</h3>

<p>
Our release numbers are of the form <i>major</i>.<i>minor</i>.<i>revision</i>.
</p>

<ul>
<li>
<strong>Major release (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.)</strong>
<p>
The major number increments when one of two things happens:
</p>
  <ul>
  <li>The release knowingly breaks backwards compatibility in some way.
  <li>The release knowingly causes a rebuild when you upgrade.
  </ul>
<p>
Our goal is that as a user of SCons,
you should always be able to upgrade to a later
release of the same major version
with complete confidence that your build will not break.
We expect that our major releases will be long-lived platforms
with many minor releases to add functionality and fix bugs.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Minor release (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.)</strong>
<p>
Minor numbers increment for releases
that add new functionality and/or bug fixes
to an existing major release.
Any new functionality will never knowingly break backwards compatibility
with any previous minor releases from the same major release.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Bug-fix revisions (1.0.1, 1.1.1, 1.2.1, etc.)</strong>
<p>
Revision numbers are appended and/or incremented
whenever a critical bug fix is necessary
for a major or minor release.
Because most new functionality and bug fixes
will be delivered in minor releases,
we expect that there will be few of these&mdash;at most
one per minor release.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Release candidates (x.y.z.dyyyymmdd)</strong>
<p>
A release candidates is a special form of checkpoint
(see below)
that is expected to be the next major or minor release.
If blocking issues show up in the candidate,
another candidate will normally be issued
(potentially delaying the release date),
otherwise the candidate will be repackaged as the major or minor release.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<strong>Checkpoints (x.y.z.dyyyymmdd)</strong>
<p>
A checkpoint has a 'd<i>yyymmdd</i>' suffix
and is made every couple of weeks between major or minor releases.
It is intended for beta testing new features
and for ensuring that bug fixes work as intended.
Although existing features from the previous release will not change,
compatibility of features under test is not guaranteed between checkpoints
(<i>i.e.</i>, the implementation of the feature may change).
Checkpoints are intended not only to allow for wider testing,
but also to make new features available to users
(who may urgently need one of them)
in advance of them being published in the next major or minor release.
</p>
</li>
</ul>

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